The search and rescue operation continues.
In the US state of Kentucky, the death toll at the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory in Mayfield has risen to eight. Eight more people are still missing.
This is reported by The Associated Press with reference to Governor Andy Besheara.
It is noted that at the moment when a tornado hit the candle factory, there were 110 employees in the room, 40 of whom were later evacuated. “Rescuers had to crawl over the dead to get to the living at the site of the disaster,” the newspaper points out.
At first, local authorities warned that “dozens of people” could have died as a result of the incident, but later more than 90 workers. who managed to escape, got in touch.
“Many employees hid from the tornado in shelter, and after the hurricane died down, they left the plant and went home,” said factory spokesman Bob Ferguson.
He also expressed the hope that the missing employees were still able to escape. At the same time, search operations at the scene of the incident continue.
Rescuers retrieved the victims' personal belongings from the rubble, including a backpack, a pair of shoes and a mobile phone with 27 missed messages.
Pastor Joel Coley, who was at the scene, compared what he saw with footage from the “Twilight Zone”. “There was a smell of candles and people screaming for help. The smell of candles and sirens everywhere is not the combination that I ever expected to see,” he said.
An employee of the Autumn Kirks factory recalled that in at the moment of the incident stood about three meters from her boyfriend Lannis Ward. The girl took off her goggles and hid, tossing aside the wax and buckets of fragrances, and when she turned back to her beloved, he was no longer there.
“I remember how I turned away from him for a second, and then he disappeared “, – she shared, adding that she saw sky and lightning at the site of the wall. Subsequently, she learned about the death of Ward
Recall that at least 22 tornadoes were registered in six US states, including Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee. More than 450 thousand people were left without electricity.
In Illinois, the EF-3 tornado, which reached a speed of about 218 kilometers per hour, caused “huge damage” to the Amazon warehouse. As a result of the collapse, six people died, another victim is in the hospital.
